


Vintage Cherry Red

by drellis



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Minor Character Death, minor Dina/Ellie but that's not the focus, wlw mlm solidarity because we deserve it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drellis/pseuds/drellis
Summary: “Mm, I was a Firefly for a while.”An uncomfortable silence falls over the two of them. Ellie sees from the corner that Joel shifts slightly.“Why’d you leave?” he grumbles, “Quite popular, them.”Liv swirls something in her glass, “There’s no good guys, Joel. It just took me a while to figure that out.”
Kudos: 16





	Vintage Cherry Red

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm a visual artist, words aren't really my medium, but I've been hyping myself up for Part II. Just finished the first game for the fourth time, watched a ton of interviews, and I had this idea for a Jackson resident that I felt I had to write down. If you haven't already, I would watch some of the interviews and panels with co-writers Neil Druckmann and Halley Gross where they talk about faction conflict and respecting every character. Gives me hope that Part II will absolutely blow me out of the water. 
> 
> And this hints at the origins of the WLF but do I think its anywhere close to canon? No. lmao

Liv is a part of the kitchen staff, though she doesn’t look the part of a jovial chef. Bold tattoos crawl up to her throat. They fit her like a turtleneck. Her head is buzzed, shorter than a fingernail, (“If you find a hair in your goddamn food, it ain’t mine, take it up with someone else or buck up”) and the shortness reveals a raised and twisting scar around her left temple stretching to the very top of her head, the slight redness of scarring a contrast to her white hair. If Ellie had to guess, she was a handful of years younger than Joel. They had twin crows feet, beginnings of crepe-paper necks, though Liv’s laugh lines are much deeper than his own. This was clear when they would spend time together, sipping Jackson’s own shitty beer, trading war stories. “Drinking buddies,” as Joel put it.

One thing that Ellie had never expected from Jackson was _Joel_ making friends, not that she’d expected much from it in the first place. On their hike down the slope to the settlement, all she had felt was a deep churning. Soil thrown over a blatant lie, a culmination. She didn’t believe what he had told her about the Fireflies, she didn’t know what to believe - but it had felt like an end, so she let it be. Instead of thinking, instead of feeling betrayal or anger towards him, instead of feeling anticipation at a safe place to sleep, she kicked rocks on her way down. They skittered surely to the bottom. Boosh.

She was fourteen, or fifteen, something like that, when she slipped through Jackson’s gates for the first time. She’s nineteen now, and frequently makes trips to and from that gate for patrols and to hunt wild game. It was different. Something had changed. Jackson has an energy to it that makes Ellie feel comfortable and warm with camaraderie. She finds herself tethered to it unlike any place she had ever lived. Only people had this effect on her in the past. Riley, Marlene, Joel.

She grows to love Jackson, as a whole. Each part of it could be associated with a memory: a shady tree where she talked to Dina, her best friend, for the first time; the front porch of the house she shared with Joel where she broke down during the first snowfall in Jackson, finally beginning to heal; the field where she learned to tend seeds. She had gotten so caught up in her new connections that she almost forgot about the Fireflies and their mission all together.

She was returning home from a movie at Dina’s house - some classic with a deep message she would have appreciated if she hadn’t been so distracted by Dina’s teasing and Dina’s flirting and Dina in general - when she catches the tail end of Liv and Joel’s conversation. She slips in through the back door, unheard.

“Mm, I was a Firefly for a while.”

An uncomfortable silence falls over the two of them. Ellie sees from the corner that Joel shifts slightly, probably taking Liv in a new context.

“Why’d you leave?” he grumbles, “Quite popular, them.”

Liv swirls something in her glass, “There’s no good guys, Joel. It just took me a while to figure that out.”

They leave it at that.

* * *

Ellie’s mind races that night - the questions buried for five years frantically dug up. The mention of Fireflies had opened up something inside of her. Almost nostalgia, but with eagerness at the possibility to return. To once again become a promise for salvation. To save someone, anyone. Or, maybe, it was fear of complacency, a deeper seated fear of... something. She doesn’t know how to tell. She doesn't want to think about it. It doesn’t matter. Ellie had figured the Fireflies were dead - this may mean she was wrong. Liv must know something, she thinks. She has to. Truth had never been closer to her, and she feels hungry for it. Starving. 

Sneaking into Liv’s house is easy. Moonlight is dim tonight. The home is squat and small, pale blue, white trim, and swallowed in lush garden, which provides some cover. Liv left the front door unlocked when she wasn’t home, unworried about theft. Everybody in Jackson felt warm friendship towards her, and didn’t want to be on her bad side - don’t bite the hand that feeds you, or however that old saying of Joel’s goes.

Ellie lets her eyes adjust - turning lights on would be risky. The living room is the largest room in the house, with only two rooms adjoining. A large easel stands in the corner, an unfinished painting. Not what she’s looking for. Ellie glances into the open-concept kitchen - nothing but rising bread dough on the counter, a few in bowls that Joel had carved himself. She moves on and opens the bedroom door.

After her time spent on the road, looting what was probably hundreds of houses, she knew where people would hide their important documents. Joel seemed to collect these documents during their travels all those years ago, even if they weren’t related to their mission. It’s the closest to a hobby he had at the time, she supposes, though now he focuses on woodworking. 

Ellie fishes a shiny dented container from underneath Liv’s bed, painted a vintage cherry red. Ellie sits cross-legged on the floor, box in her lap, and flips the clips up with two definitive clacks and opens the box. She finds a note lying on top of a pile of letters and knick-knacks, paper thick and slightly yellowed.

> _Paul,_
> 
> _Looks like you were right when you said one of us would get pregnant looking at each other like that. Tell Michael I miss him, the old queen. I guess you’re alright too. Come meet our little family sometime._
> 
> _Mandy._

She flips the note over - the thick paper isn’t just thick paper, it’s a photograph.

It’s a picture of Liv. She looks young - her hair is still buzzed almost to her scalp, and tattoos still hike up to her neck, but they’re darker and clearer. Liv’s face is round and smooth, and a septum piercing curls out of her nose. Ellie knows Liv as a large woman who rivals Joel in stature and muscle, but in this image, she looks so small. She’s smiling an exhausted little smile, cheeks flush. One inked arm is held out to the camera, making some sort of sign that Joel told her some time ago means “rock on” or some shit, and in the other, she’s cradling a tiny, pink baby to her chest.

She feels guilt like a ton of bricks. This is not what she was looking for, and a huge invasion of privacy. She gently places the photo back, and goes to close the box.

“When everything started, I was living in Oregon,” Liv says, voice quiet, softly taking the box from Ellie before she could close it. Ellie nearly jumps out of her skin, cursing her lack of awareness, but settles as Liv sits on the end of her bed, looking down at her. The dim light shines in through the window and her hair glitters like snow.

“Rural town, my wife and I had a small home there. Built the place up myself with a couple buddies. Our son,” she gently runs a battered thumb over the photograph, “was six months old when the outbreak started. I was twenty-five. We holed up for as long as we could. Mandy died during a scavenging trip a few months in - Runners, people we knew. Thank God I was close enough to put her down before she had to suffer long.

“I knew I couldn’t go it alone, not with Simon depending on me. If I died, he needed someone else to care for him. Paul and Michael lived in a big city. I didn’t want to go, too much risk, too far, but the government had set up a QZ up there in Washington, in Seattle, and I figured that’s the only place they would be. I clawed my way there, by the skin of my fuckin’ teeth, but I was right. Paul was there, but Michael had been visiting his parents in Denver when travel was banned, and couldn’t make his way back.

“Paul and I lived together in the QZ for a while. He was my best friend in art school, we’d stayed in touch. He was my social outlet. He was there when I met Mandy. He was there to help me grieve her. We supported each other for a long time. He and Michael were Simon’s godparents, and Paul took care of him like he was his son in blood. Seattle was an unstable zone, rations were sometimes withheld, but everyone had a soft spot for babies, and Simon never went starving.

“FEDRA started doing mandatory daily scans of everyone in the QZ. We had lived there a couple years at this point. Simon was almost five.” 

She pauses for what seems like minutes.

“They put us on our knees. Paul was scanned and came up infected, despite not leaving the QZ in days. He had been taking care of Simon while I was working. They shot him, Simon screamed, and they shot him too,”

Ellie felt her organs clench, lightheaded, and nausea shot up her spine.

“I saw him drop and my memory blacked out. I know there was a scuffle, my body was injured, my head was bleeding, I was covered in military blood, and when I came to, the soldiers that had shot them were dead, and my community was restless, screaming, full of rage. We took over the QZ - killed every soldier there, eliminated any FEDRA and military presence whatsoever. Scraped their propaganda off every wall and covered it with our own. We did whatever we could to manage, for a while, our new little group, but I couldn’t stay there. Too much...everything.

“So I left. Was on the road wandering aimlessly for a few months before finding the Fireflies’ cause. Joined without a second of hesitation, and stayed for, God,” she attempted counting on her fingers before giving up, “a decade? More? It all blurs together.”

Ellie tries to think of the right words to say, and it fails her, so she defaults to the truth, “I want to find the Fireflies. I want to help with the cure.”

Liv tenses.

She says, “There is no cure.”

Ellie bristles for a moment, reminded of Joel’s lie, before she remembers that she was the one who was intruding, and asking for help. She keeps her defiance under wraps this time.

“How can you know that for sure? I knew Marlene, and she said I could help. I-”

“Marlene said a lot of things. All bullshit.”

“You don’t understand, Liv. I was immune - am immune. Marlene said her team could make a vaccine.”

Liv considers her, bloodshot eyes blank, and then after a moment, just tired, “How do you think the Fireflies knew so much about the infection, Ellie? For a group that championed personal freedom and democracy...we killed a lot of people, kicking and screaming, for information that culminated into nothing at all. My group infected kids.. Pregnant women. Babies,” she punctuates this by sharply closing the box, “Under the guise of science. All to ‘find a cure’. To try to create immunity. I was in shock the first time I saw what our doctors did, thought I was having a hallucination. Took some pills for the pain it caused. The second time, I left.”

She places the box back under the bed, so gentle, like it is a sacred thing.

“The Fireflies died a very long time ago,” she says.


End file.
